Jacquelyn Mitchard, Thomas Lux, Clarice Lispector, Ara Baliozian, Christine Brückner

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Jacquelyn Mitchard werd geboren in Chicago, Illinois, op 10 december 1951. Zie ook mijn blog van 10 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 10 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 10 december 2010.

 

Uit: Second Nature

“This is what I know.

My father stood in the center aisle of the Lady Chapel—that hunched, hexed little building he hated as a father and as a firefighter— under the lowering band of sooty, mean-colored smoke, and he looked right at me. He understood what had happened to me, and although he couldn’t tell me then, he was still happy. He thought I was one of the lucky ones.

I was.

This is what I remember.

There were fifty of us in the Lady Chapel that late afternoon, December 20, the shortest day of the year. Inside, in winter, it was always about as warm and bright as an igloo. Wearing our coats and mittens as we sang “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” we could see our breath.

As a place of worship and a historic structure, the Lady Chapel was exempt from all the building codes and conformed to none of them, which was why Dad despised the very sight of it. The mahogany pews, each with a different intricate carving, massaged for seventy years with layers of flammable polish, were nothing but tinder to him. Raw and reckless new structures, when they burned, were flimsy as tents. But the old chapel had stone walls a foot thick and had been reroofed so many times that Dad said that it could have withstood a phosphorus bomb.

It didn’t take anything as potent as a bomb, only a small candle in a small draft.

That day, just as the choirmaster, Mr. Treadwell, brought together his fingertips and held them up to his delicate cheekbones, twinkly as a ballerina (looking back, I think Mr. Treadwell was twinkly all the

time, what my mother called “a confirmed bachelor”), first one and then the other Christmas tree on either side of the altar went up like ten-foot sparklers. A few kids simply stood, flat-footed and amazed, as though the pyrotechnics were some sort of holiday surprise. I knew better than to think that, even for a second.”

 

Jacquelyn Mitchard (Chicago, 10 december 1951)

Lees verder “Jacquelyn Mitchard, Thomas Lux, Clarice Lispector, Ara Baliozian, Christine Brückner”

Gioconda Belli, Michael Krüger, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Anna Gavalda

De Nicaraguaanse schrijfster, dichteres en ex-politica Gioconda Belli werd geboren op 9 december 1948 in Managua. Zie ook alle tags voor Gioconda Belli op dit blog.

Zandkastelen

Waarom zei je me niet dat je bezig was
dat zandkasteel te bouwen?

Het zou zo heerlijk geweest zijn
om dat kleine poortje binnen te treden,
door zijn zoute gangen te lopen
je op te wachten in kamers van schelpen,
je toe te spreken vanaf het balkon
mijn mond vol wit schuim en even transparant
als mijn woorden,
die vederlichte woorden die ik tot je sprak,
die niet zwaarder zijn dan de lucht
tussen mijn tanden

Het is zo heerlijk naar zee te kijken

En de zee zou zo mooi geweest zijn
vanaf ons zandkasteel,
de tijd likkend
met de intense en diepe tederheid
van het water,
ronddwalen d in de verhalen die men ons vertelde
toen wij, kinderen, een en al oor waren
voor de natuur

Het wassende water heeft je zandkasteel
nu meegenomen.
Heeft alles weggeveegd, de torens
en de grachten
het poortje waarlangs wij bij laagtij
zouden binnengetreden zijn,
als de werkelijkheid veraf was
en er op het strand
zandkastelen zijn…

Vertaald doorGermain Droogenbroodt

 

BRIEF LESSONS IN EROTICISM

I
To sail the entire length of a body is to circle the world
To navigate the rose of the winds without a compass
Islands gulfs peninsulas breakwaters against crashing waves
It isn’t easy, though it is enjoyable
Don’t think you can do it in one day or night of consoling the sheets
There are enough secrets in the pores to fill many moons
II
The body is an astral chart in a coded language
Find a star and perhaps you’ll begin
To change course when suddenly a hurricane or piercing scream
Makes you tremble in fear
A dip in the hand you didn’t expect
III
Go over the entire length many times
Find the lake with the white water lilies
Caress the lily’s center with your anchor
Plunge deep drown yourself stretch your limbs
Don’t deny yourself the smell the salt the sugar
The heavy winds cumulonimbus-lungs
The brain’s dense fog
Earthquake of legs
Sleeping tidal wave of kisses

 

Vertaald door Steven F. White


Gioconda Belli (Managua, 9 december 1948)

Rubin Dario, Gioconda Belli en Ernesto Cardina, portret door Erin Currier

Lees verder “Gioconda Belli, Michael Krüger, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Anna Gavalda”

Ödön von Horváth, John Milton, Jan Křesadlo, Maksim Bahdanovič, Dalton Trumbo

De Hongaars-Duitse schrijver Ödön von Horváth werd geboren op 9 december 1901 in Fiume. Zie ook alle tags voor Ödön von Horváth op dit blog.

 

Uit: Jugend ohne Gott

Draussen scheint noch die Sonne, fein muss es sein im Park! Doch Beruf ist Pflicht, ich korrigiere die Hefte und schreibe in mein Büchlein hinein, wer etwas taugt oder nicht. Das von der Aufsichtsbehörde vorgeschriebene Thema der Aufsätze lautet: »Warum müssen wir Kolonien haben?

« Ja, warum? Nun, lasset uns hören!

Der erste Schüler beginnt mit einem B: er heisst Bauer, mit dem Vornamen Franz. In dieser Klasse gibts keinen, der mit A beginnt, dafür haben wir aber gleich fünf mit B. Eine Seltenheit, so viele B’s bei insgesamt sechsundzwanzig Schülern! Aber zwei B’s sind Zwillinge, daher das Ungewöhnliche.

Automatisch überfliege ich die Namensliste in meinem Büchlein und stelle fest, dass B nur von S fast erreicht wird stimmt, vier beginnen mit S, drei mit M, je zwei mit E, G, L und R, je einer mit F, H, N, T, W, Z, während keiner der Buben mit A, C, D, I, O, P, Q, U, V, X, Y beginnt.

Nun, Franz Bauer, warum brauchen wir Kolonien?

»Wir brauchen die Kolonien«, schreibt er, »weil wir zahlreiche Rohstoffe benötigen, denn ohne Rohstoffe könnten wir unsere hochstehende Industrie nicht ihrem innersten Wesen und Werte nach beschäftigen, was zur unleidlichen Folge hätte, dass der heimische Arbeitsmann wieder arbeitslos werden würde.« Sehr richtig, lieber Bauer! »Es dreht sich zwar nicht um die Arbeiter« sondern, Bauer? , »es dreht sich vielmehr um das Volksganze, denn auch der Arbeiter gehört letzten Endes zum Volk.«

Das ist ohne Zweifel letzten Endes eine grossartige Entdeckung, geht es mir durch den Sinn und plötzlich fällt es mir wieder auf, wie häufig in unserer Zeit uralte Weisheiten als erstmalig formulierte Schlagworte serviert werden. Oder war das immer schon so?

Ich weiss es nicht.

Jetzt weiss ich nur, dass ich wiedermal sechsundzwanzig Aufsätze durchlesen muss, Aufsätze, die mit schiefen Voraussetzungen falsche Schlussfolgerungen ziehen. Wie schön wärs, wenn sich »schief« und »falsch« aufheben würden, aber sie tuns nicht. Sie wandeln Arm in Arm daher und singen hohle Phrasen.

Ich werde mich hüten als städtischer Beamter, an diesem lieblichen Gesange auch nur die leiseste Kritik zu üben! Wenns auch weh tut, was vermag der Einzelne gegen Alle? Er kann sich nur heimlich ärgern. Und ich will mich nicht mehr ärgern!

Korrigier rasch, Du willst noch ins Kino!“

 


Ödön von Horváth (9 december 1901 – 1 juni 1938)

Lees verder “Ödön von Horváth, John Milton, Jan Křesadlo, Maksim Bahdanovič, Dalton Trumbo”

Louis de Bernières, Bill Bryson, Mary Gordon, Delmore Schwartz, James Thurber, Hervey Allen

De Britse schrijver Louis de Bernières werd geboren in Londen op 8 december 1954. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2009. en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.

Uit: Birds Without Wings

„Yusuf the Tall strode up and down the room, waving his hands, protesting and expostulating, sometimes burying his face in his hands. Kaya had not seen him so anguished and begrieved since the death of his mother three years before. He had painted the tulip on the headstone with his own hands, and had taken bread and olives so that he could eat at the graveside, imagining his mother underneath the stones, but unable to picture her as anything but living and intact.
Yusuf had passed the stage of anger. The time had gone when these patrollings of the room had been accompanied by obscenities so fearful that Kaya and her children had had to flee the house with their hands over their ears, their heads ringing with his curses against his daughter and the Christian: “Orospu çocu¢gu! Orospu çocu¢gu! Piç!”
By now, however, Yusuf the Tall was in that state of grief which foreknew in its full import the horror of what was inescapably to come. His face glistened with anticipatory tears, and when he threw his head back and opened his mouth to groan, thick saliva strung itself across his teeth.
Overtaken, finally, by weariness, Kaya had given up pleading with him, partly because she herself could see no other way to deal with what had occurred. If it had been a Muslim, perhaps they could have married her to him, or perhaps they could have repeated what had been done with Tamara Hanim. Perhaps they could have kept her concealed in the house, unmarried for ever, and perhaps the child could have been given away. Perhaps they could have left it at the gates of a monastery. Perhaps they could have sent her away in disgrace, to fend for herself and suffer whatever indignities fate and divine malice should rain upon her head. It had not been a Muslim, however, it had been an infidel.

Yusuf was an implacable and undeviating adherent to his faith. Originally from Konya, he was not like the other Muslims of this mongrel town who seemed to be neither one thing nor the other, getting converted when they married, drinking wine with Christians either overtly or in secret, begging favours in their prayers from Mary Mother of Jesus, not asking what the white meat was when they shared a meal, and being buried with a silver cross wrapped in a scrap of the Koran enfolded in their hands, just because it was wise to back both camels in salvation’s race.“

Louis de Bernières (Londen, 8 december 1954)

Lees verder “Louis de Bernières, Bill Bryson, Mary Gordon, Delmore Schwartz, James Thurber, Hervey Allen”

Georges Feydeau, Horatius, Carmen Martín Gaite, Nikos Gatsos, Jura Soyfer, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Joel Chandler Harris

De Franse theaterauteur Georges Feydeau werd geboren op 8 december 1862 in Parijs. Zie ook alle tags voor George Feydeau op dit blog.

 

Uit: On purge bébé

„Surgissant en trombe par la porte, pan coupé. Tenue de souillon ; peignoir-éponge dont la cordelière non attachée traîne par ; petit jupon de soie sur la chemise de nuit qui dépasse par en bas : bigoudis dans, les cheveux ; bas tombant sur les savates. Elle tient un seau de toilette plein d’eau à la main.

JULIE : Alors, quoi ? Tu ne peux pas te déranger ? Non ?
FOLLAVOINE :
Ah! Je t’en prie, n’entre donc pas toujours comme une bombe!… Ah!
JULIE :
Oh! Pardon! Tu ne peux pas te déranger ? Non ?
FOLLAVOINE :
Eh bien! Et toi ? Pourquoi faut-il que ce soit moi qui me dérange plutôt que toi ?
JULIE :
C’est juste! C’est juste! Nous sommes mariés, alors!…
FOLLAVOINE :
Quoi ? Quoi ? Quel rapport ?…
JULIE :
Ah! Je serais seulement la femme d’un autre, il est probable que!…
FOLLAVOINE :
Ah! Laisse-moi donc tranquille! Je suis occupé, v’là tout!
JULIE :
Occupé! Monsieur est occupé! C’est admirable!
FOLLAVOINE :
Oui, occupé! Ah!
JULIE :
Quoi ?
FOLLAVOINE :
Ah çà! Tu es folle ? Tu m’apportes ton seau de toilette ici, à présent ?
JULIE :
Quoi, “mon seau” ? Où ça, “mon seau” ?
FOLLAVOINE :
Ça!
JULIE :
Ah! Là! C’est rien. C’est mes eaux sales.
FOLLAVOINE :
Qu’est-ce que tu veux que j’en fasse ?
JULIE :
Mais c’est pas pour toi! C’est pour les vider.
FOLLAVOINE :
Ici ?
JULIE :
Mais non, pas ici! Que c’est bête ce que tu dis-là ! Je n’ai pas l’habitude de vider mes eaux dans ton cabinet de travail ; j’ai du tact.
FOLLAVOINE :
Alors, pourquoi me les apportes-tu ?
JULIE : Mais pour rien! Parce que j’avais le seau en main pour aller le vider quand Rose
est venue me rapporter ta charmante réponse : alors, pour ne pas te faire attendre…
FOLLAVOINE : Tu ne pouvais pas le laisser à la porte ?
JULIE :
Ah! Et puis tu m’embêtes ! Si ça te gêne tant, tu n’avais qu’à te déranger quand je te demandais de venir ; mais Monsieur était occupé ! à quoi ? Je te le demande.“

 

Georges Feydeau (8 december 1862 – 5 juni 1921)

Opvoering van On purge bébé in de Salle polyvalente de Tonnerre, 2010

Lees verder “Georges Feydeau, Horatius, Carmen Martín Gaite, Nikos Gatsos, Jura Soyfer, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Joel Chandler Harris”

Tatamkhulu Afrika, Johann Nestroy, Friedrich Schlögl

De Zuid-Afrikaanse dichter en schrijver Tatamkhulu Afrika werd geboren op 7 december 1920 in Egypte. Zie ook alle tags voor Tatamkhulu Afrika op dit blog.

 

The knifing

Black workers pass
me carrying their tools.
I call to them for help:
the stone
masks of their faces turn
aside,
do not look my way again.
He flails the blade
across the top of my skull
(does he see it as a fruit,
splittable, spewing seed?),
slashes, then,
the tender guardians of my wrists,
drives the knife-point in
below my left side’s bottom rib,
and runs.
I leave a spoor
like a wounded beast’s,
make it to the little Indian shop
that sells boiled eggs with mayonnaise,
sway,
falling about in my own blood,
eyes shouting “Help!”
They carry me to the ambulance.
The clouds sweep
me with their sad sides:
yet I hear someone speak
of the bright day
and what a shame it is that this should be done
to anyone on such a day.
A face stares
at me through the wire-mesh
of a police van.
It is his; he sees
my wretched body pass,
blood leaking at every seam:
blood that is also on his hands;
turns away, then with a suddenness that says
more than any tongue,
burrows his face into his hands.
What does he see?
They stitch and stitch,
let my head hang down
when the lights go round and I feel
sense slipping from me like a skin,
and I am the unadorned
genitals of my need.
She screams and screams,
like a cat on heat,
like a little girl drumming her heels.
But she is seventeen:
he beat her until she was all
broken up inside.
I stare at the fluorescent tube;
it shrinks
to a filament of fire in my brain.
Blood still sees
from the black Khayelitsha youth’s
panga-riven-skull;
black bruises prowl
over the old man opposite’s
white-as-his-sheet-skin.
Only I do not sleep.
Time is a pendulum that swings
unlinked to any clock:
only the black window’s scowling back
tell of night; pain writhes
through me like an eel.
I watch the glucose drip,
drop by dizzying drop,
into my veins, wake
to sunlight on the walls,
starlings flirting past the glass,
Khayelitsha mopping blood from his neck,
grinning, saying
I can borrow his pee-bottle if I want.
I sag on the bed,
glucose mellow-honey in my veins,
small pulse of reluctant life
kick-starting way back.
Khayelitsha takes my hand,
hopes I’ll soon be well;
goes out then,
moving slowly amongst the slow-
moving coterie of his friends.
Desultory Xhosa clicks
snap like trodden sticks,
fade down
an inner tribal trial.
I face him then:
his neck nuzzling my palm.
His face still hidden in his hands.
What does he see?
I think to set him free.
How shall he be free?
Or I?
Testicle to testicle, we are trussed
by the winding round
us, rambling plastic coils.
Roaring down each other’s throats,
bellowing of our need,
we are skewered on the sharp
white lightning of his blade.

 

Tatamkhulu Afrika (7 december 1920 – 23 december 2002)

Lees verder “Tatamkhulu Afrika, Johann Nestroy, Friedrich Schlögl”

Gabriel Marcel, Noam Chomsky, Willa Cather, Samuel Gottlieb Bürde

De Franse filosoof en toneelauteur Gabriel Marcel werd geboren op 7 december 1889 in Parijs. Zie ook alle tags voor Gabriel Marcel op dit blog.

 

Uit: Awakenings (Vertaald door Peter S. Rogers)

„This summer day of 1899 was a terrible date in the life of a child, asI learned that we were going to leave Stockholm and return to Paris.How can I ever forget the heavy heart with which I received thisnews? As my father suffered somewhat from the Swedish climate anddidn’t much care for the worldly and formal aspects of diplomaticlife, he was going to switch positions with a senior member of theCouncil of State, Monsieur Catusse. This meant first of all that Icould no longer hope to spend vacation in Finland or in Norway.What may seem peculiar is that nothing, or almost nothing, attracted me in the Paris where we were to settle definitively. I also felt that ourreturn would be, sooner or later, followed by my entrance into thelycée, something I vaguely feared since, until then, I had been educated at home. I can’t recall whether it was immediately before orafter our stay in Stockholm that, for some months, I attended classesat Rue Royale where my fellow students were mainly young girls.

What had I most appreciated in the Swedish capital? Without hesitation I would say the landscapes. I remember a discussion with myfather on the topic during a boat ride on the Saltsjön. He was essentially a man of the Midi, the French South, and this somewhat uniform and sad nature bored him. Yet there was something in it thatexalted me. But what words could I use to translate that emotion?

I must have expressed myself rather awkwardly. But when I thinkabout what I had lived during that year in Stockholm, I see this: itwas as though I had been removed from the humdrum life I was to suffer from so much later on, by the fact of being far away, and onthe edge of countries that were still farther away and which attracted me.“

 

Gabriel Marcel (7 december 1889 – 8 oktober 1973)

Lees verder “Gabriel Marcel, Noam Chomsky, Willa Cather, Samuel Gottlieb Bürde”

Peter Handke, Rafał Wojaczek, Dirk Dobbrow, Henk van Woerden

De Oostenrijkse schrijver Peter Handke werd op 6 december 1942 in Griffen in Karinthië geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Peter Handke op dit blog.

 

Uit: Die Morawische Nacht

“Jedes Land hat sein Samarkand und sein Numancia.

In jener Nacht lagen die beiden Stätten hier bei uns, hier an der Morawa. Numancia, im iberischen Hochland, war einst die letzte Flucht- und Trutzburg gegen das Römerreich gewesen; Samarkand, was auch immer der Ort in der Historie darstellte, wurde und ist sagenhaft; wird, jenseits der Geschichte, sagenhaft sein. Die Stelle der Fluchtburg nahm an der Morawa ein Boot ein, ein dem Anschein nach eher kleines, das sich »Hotel« nannte, in erster Linie aber, seit geraumer Zeit schon, dem Autor, dem ehemaligen Autor, als Wohnung diente. Die Aufschrift HOTEL war bloße

Tarnung: Wer für die Nacht nach einem Zimmer, einer Kabine fragte, der wurde in der Regel mit einem

»Ausgebucht« beschieden. Die Nachfrage blieb freilich nahe null, und nicht nur, weil das Boot jeweils

an einer Flußstelle ankerte, zu der es keine rechten Zufahrtswege gab. Wenn einmal sich einer bis dahin durchschlug, dann höchstens angezogen von dem Namen des »Hotels«, der weithin durch die Finsternis der Flußauen leuchtete: MORAWISCHE NACHT.

Das Boot war nicht verankert, sondern bloß so an Bäumen oder Strommasten vertäut, und zwar derart, daß die Taue leicht und schnell zu lösen waren – eben zur Flucht, oder auch nur zum Mir-nichts-dir-nichts- Weiterfahren oder Wenden, fl ußauf oder fl ußab. (Die Morawa war zu jener Zeit, nach vielen Jahren nicht allein kriegsbedingter Versandung und Verschlammung, dank einer selbst die Grenzen unseres zur Kümmerecke Europas verkrachten Landes überschreitenden und – fast – allesheilenden Wirtschaft, auf große Strecken, bis hin in die Quellgebiete der Südlichen und der Westlichen Morawa in Maßen wieder schiffbar geworden.)

In der Nacht, da wir auf das Boot gerufen wurden, hielt dieses zwischen dem Dorf Porodin und der Stadt Velika Plana. Velika Plana liegt zwar näher am Fluß. Aber der Ruf kam vom Porodiner Ufer, von einer Stelle weitab von der die beiden Orte verbindenden Brücke, und so zickzackten wir, ein jeder für sich, aus dem Dorf, kreuz und quer, jetzt nach links, jetzt nach rechts abbiegend, über die von Feld zu Feld richtungwechselnden Ackerwege.”

 


Peter Handke (Griffen, 6 december 1942)

Lees verder “Peter Handke, Rafał Wojaczek, Dirk Dobbrow, Henk van Woerden”

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Paul Adam, Sophie von La Roche, Baldassare Castiglione

De Amerikaanse journalist en dichter Alfred Joyce Kilmer werd geboren op 6 december 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Zie ook alle tags voor Alfred Joyce Kilmer op dit blog.

A Blue Valentine
(For Aline)

Monsignore,
Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus,
Sometime of Interamna, which is called Ferni,
Now of the delightful Court of Heaven,
I respectfully salute you,
I genuflect
And I kiss your episcopal ring.

It is not, Monsignore,
The fragrant memory of your holy life,
Nor that of your shining and joyous martyrdom,
Which causes me now to address you.
But since this is your august festival, Monsignore,
It seems appropriate to me to state
According to a venerable and agreeable custom,
That I love a beautiful lady.
Her eyes, Monsignore,
Are so blue that they put lovely little blue reflections
On everything that she looks at,
Such as a wall
Or the moon
Or my heart.
It is like the light coming through blue stained glass,
Yet not quite like it,
For the blueness is not transparent,
Only translucent.
Her soul’s light shines through,
But her soul cannot be seen.
It is something elusive, whimsical, tender, wanton, infantile, wise
And noble.
She wears, Monsignore, a blue garment,
Made in the manner of the Japanese.
It is very blue —
I think that her eyes have made it more blue,
Sweetly staining it
As the pressure of her body has graciously given it form.
Loving her, Monsignore,
I love all her attributes;
But I believe
That even if I did not love her
I would love the blueness of her eyes,
And her blue garment, made in the manner of the Japanese.

Monsignore,
I have never before troubled you with a request.
The saints whose ears I chiefly worry with my pleas
are the most exquisite and maternal Brigid,
Gallant Saint Stephen, who puts fire in my blood,
And your brother bishop, my patron,
The generous and jovial Saint Nicholas of Bari.
But, of your courtesy, Monsignore,
Do me this favour:
When you this morning make your way
To the Ivory Throne that bursts into bloom with roses
because of her who sits upon it,
When you come to pay your devoir to Our Lady,
I beg you, say to her:
“Madame, a poor poet, one of your singing servants yet on earth,
Has asked me to say that at this moment he is especially grateful to you
For wearing a blue gown.”

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (6 december 1886 – 30 juli 1918)

Lees verder “Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Paul Adam, Sophie von La Roche, Baldassare Castiglione”

Verlanglijst negatief (Annie M.G. Schmidt), Paul van Ostaijen, Alois Brandstetter, Christina Rossetti, Fjodor Tjoettsjev

 

Bij 5 december

 

Verlanglijst negatief

Geeft u mij maar geen zakdoeken-sasjet.
Ik weet niet hoe je ’t schrijft, maar ‘k wil het niet.
En ook geen glazenhoudertjes van riet,
omdat ik daar toch nooit een glas in zet.

En liever ook geen koperen hagedis,
en ook geen pop met stofdoeken erin,
en niet dat boek getiteld: Ons Gezin,
waarvan Trouw zegt dat het zo zuiver is.

En niet zo’n leuke gong voor in de hal
en als u bijgeval dan toch iets geeft:
ook niet dat boek: Hoe men Harmonisch leeft
(als ’t u hetzelfde is): ik weet het al.

En astublieft vooral geen necessaire
en astublieft geen manicure-etui,
ik heb die dingen allebei en zie,
zij geven mij uitsluitend veel misère.

Wel, als u dan bepaald iets voor ons zoekt:
geef ons dan geen pressure cooker per abuis.
Er is voldoende pressure in ons huis,
wij zijn er al compleet van gaarge-cook-t.

Geen sjaaltje met I love you, en geen vaasje…
Ziezo, dat was het. Dank u, Sinterklaasje.

 

Annie M.G. Schmidt(20 mei 1911 – 21 mei 1995)

 

Sint Nicolaas aan de Zaan

 

Het liedje van twee Sinten

Ik hou van Sint Niklaas
ik hou van Sinte Martin
ik hou van de ezel van Sint Niklaas
ik hou van het zwaard van Sinte Martin
ik hou van de ezel een oude wijs van wijze goedheld
– zijn rug draagt rust door de straat onbewuste venter –
lk hou van het zwaard het klieft de eigen mantel
– plotse scherpte van nieuwe ogen over de schijn der dingen –
goed en wijsscherp en rustig
ik hou van de ezel van Sint Niklaas
lk hou van het zwaard van Sinte Martin
ik hou van Sint Niklaas
lk hou van Sinte Martin

 

Paul van Ostaijen (22 februari 1896 – 18 maart 1928)

 

Zie ook mijn blog van 5 december 2010 en eveneens mijn blog van 5 december 2009.

Lees verder “Verlanglijst negatief (Annie M.G. Schmidt), Paul van Ostaijen, Alois Brandstetter, Christina Rossetti, Fjodor Tjoettsjev”